Friday, March 07, 2008

Looking Down at Marietta

As always click to make the picture larger to see the details. You might get tired of me saying this - but sometimes somebody wanders in that doesn't know that.

If you haven’t yet look at aerial scenes that Google has available taken from a satellite that you might find this interesting, if you are a Cobb County resident…. and again, you might not.

Here is what I did. I picked 10 scenes that I think are most common places that people probably know about in Marietta. If you want to, exercise your brain a little – without looking below the picture, to see what it is of, see if you can figure it out first.

1. Top picture: The Big Chicken is in the upper right of the intersection of Roswell Road and the 4-Lane (aka Cobb Parkway). The Big Chicken is the tiny little purple ball.

2. The City and Confederate Cemeteries. The street that is almost a left border is powder Springs Street and the right ones are West Atlanta Street, Atlanta Street, and the Marietta Parkway (aka Marietta Loop). In between are Gramling, West Dixie, and Hedges Street, and above those are the two cemeteries: the Marietta City Cemetery and the Confederate Cemetery.

3. Kennesaw Memorial Cemetery. If you have lived in or near Marietta for a while you have some personal relationship with this cemetery. Our folks are buried there, and it is also our future home.

4. The Kennestone-Wellstar Hospital complex. Not only is it a complex, but it also complicated. They are always adding something so it seems you are always rerouted when you are finding a parking place.

5. Larry Bell Park. You probably know it like the back of your hand - I do, even the creek that we used to build dams for a swimming hole.

6. Roswell and Fairground Streets intersection. You can see the National cemetery, upper left of the intersection.

7. The Marietta Square.

8. The old Marietta High School, which is now the new (fairly) Marietta Junior High School.

9. Kennesaw Mountain (that one was easy).

10. The City of Kennesaw, downtown. It looks kind of lonely from way up here. You can not hear the clatter and and tinkles of dishes and glasses, and the music from the unique restaurants way up here.

9 Comments:

j3 said...

et,

I had to strain on many of them, but I knew Larry Bell/Perry Parham Park instantly. I spent what seems like half my childhood either there or Custer Park having way more fun than should be allowed. I think one of the best summers ever was after I was 17, I played on a team at PP that had a bunch of South Cobb & Osborne players who just wanted to play. We would have Saturday evening games and get out there at 9:00am and just play ball all day. It wasn't even a game. You would just rotate through all the positions on the field, then hit & run the bases like it was live action. We got picked as the "B" team that entered All-Stars for PP, beat our "A" team, and the legendary East Cobb team loaded with future minor leaguers & college players, and wound up 1 out away from going to Texas for Nationals. What a Summer!

Judy,Yes, indeed, it is always nice to see plenty of green. Unfortunately, there are many little strip shopping centers, and some big ones too that are just about closed - which means vast empty parking lots with the only green popping up from cracks in the cement.

J3,Did you double click on the pictures? I guess even then you have to strain at some of the thing - but expecting what to see helps the imagination see it.As you might know I lived across the street from Larry Bell Park from age 7 to age 15 and played at Perry Parham park before it was the name - because Perry played there the same time I did. He played for Dupree's, I played for Southern Discount. I think I know bump and rise in that park and I too had more fun than the law allows - so, I'm not sure if the statues of limitations have ran out of not.

Really enjoy messing around with Google's satellite images. Previewed a suggested route up to Front Royal on Google. Almost like doing a second trip when I actually drove it. Found the old white Grand Marquis sitting in my driveway. Fascinating.

Si,Isn't it great! In the past couple of weeks I noticed that that the satellite images in and around this area has been updated. They are just several months old instead of several years. Newly built subdivisions and new streets that were cut are shown.It is very relaxing to pick an area you know a lot about and study the details from a high view. I found that if I am ever wound tight and can't go to sleep, that is sure way to relax, study the details.

I was challenging my "aging" eyesight and wanted to try to ID the pics before clicking on them. Google Earth is one of the great inventions of the past 5 years - along with youtube. Ah the fun of the World Wide Waste of Time! I found out through Google Earth that we had a Big Foot sighting at one of my historic sites in the 60s. Only on the internet!!

J3,A Big Foot sighting at one of your historical sites? Wow! Yep, the the internet, you-tube, and little video cameras have shifted history - now, cops can't even have a little fun and beat somebody to a pulp any more - some silly do-gooder will video it...what's happening to America?